“Three’s Company” meets “Married…With Children?” Very far from
it! This show is yet another return to the cheesy forced laugh-track style we
were all hoping was going away.

ABC’s new show “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter” (or “8
Simple Rules…” as it is sometimes called to save time) is the story of the
family of Paul Hennessy (John Ritter.) He is married to Cate (Katey Sagal) with
three children. The oldest one is sixteen-year-old Bridget (Kaley Cuoco), a
total hottie who is the biggest source of stress for Paul. Next, there is
fifteen-year-old Kerry (Amy Davidson, who is actually 22 in real life) is Paul’s
sarcastic middle child. Finally, there is 13-year-old Rory (Martin Spanjers),
the kid that Paul stresses the least about, mainly just because he is a boy.
Paul is a newspaper columnist who is able to work at home, so he is able to take
care of the kids while Cate goes to her job as a hospital nurse. Bridget is
dating Kyle (Billy Aaron Brown), the son of Paul’s co-worker and friend Tommy
(Larry Miller.) This makes Paul nervous, because he thinks Kyle just has one
thing on his mind in his intentions with Bridget, mainly based on his own
memories of being a teenager and comments made by Tommy (who called Bridget “the
hot one.”)

This show is based off the book of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron, a
syndicated newspaper humor columnist, who himself has two daughters and a son.
I’ve never read the book or read his column, but if it is anything like Dave
Barry (who himself had a TV show for four seasons on CBS called “Dave’s World,”
which ran from 1993 to 1997, and were based on his books and columns), it is
much funnier than this show. It has everything going for it with the great
comedic actor Ritter, but somehow seems to be yet another watered-down family
sitcom. Paul might as well be a widower, because Sagal’s character Cate is
barely there, and when she is, Ritter and Sagal have no chemistry as a married
couple.

The kids are fine for what they are asked to do, but unfortunately, in this
world since the days of “Roseanne” and “Home Improvement,” their
characters have become clichéd. The two older daughters are just like Becky and
Darlene from “Roseanne” (in fact, if you blinked, you would think that
Davidson was Sara Gilbert.) Rory is just like Randy from “Home Improvement”
(are they supposed to have two wisecracking kids? Isn’t that breaking a sitcom
rule?)

Overall, the performances are fine, but “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage
Daughter” is really a been-there, done-that show. After last season’s huge
amount of innovative sitcoms (which mostly were cancelled), I was really hoping
for more this season. This show is a return to the safe, bland style that will
regrettably be a hit. Until we can get over our weird need to have a
laugh-track and musty old jokes, we will continue to get shows like this.